Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Samantha Hayes
Title Page
No Way Out
Preview of Before You Die
Copyright
About the Book
The gripping new short story, from the author of Until You’re Mine and Before You Die. Perfect for fans of S J Watson and Sophie Hannah.
Your wife and daughter have been kidnapped and are being held hostage. Only you can save them.
But how far will you go…?
Includes an extract from Before You Die – Samantha Hayes’ compelling second psychological suspense featuring DI Lorraine Fisher, out in paperback 15 January.
About the Author
Samantha Hayes grew up in the West Midlands, left school at sixteen, avoided university and took jobs ranging from being a private detective to barmaid to fruit picker and factory worker. She lived on a kibbutz, and spent time in Australia and the USA, before finally becoming a crime-writer.
Her writing career began when she won a short story competition in 2003. Her novels are family-based psychological thrillers, with the emphasis being on ‘real life fiction’. She focuses on current issues, and when she writes, she sets out to make her reader ask, ‘What if this happened to me or my family?’ With three children of her own, Samantha is well-versed to talk about how the aftershocks of crime impact upon families and communities.
To find out more, visit her website www.samanthahayes.co.uk
Also by Samantha Hayes
Until You’re Mine
Before You Die
Writing as Sam Hayes
Blood Ties
Unspoken
Tell Tale
Someone Else’s Son
No Way Out
Samantha Hayes
‘Are you going to kill us?’ My voice judders from the bumps in the road, and my throat is tight from fear. I can’t help thinking about you, if you’re home yet, if you know we’ve been kidnapped.
Your daughter and your wife.
The stranger doesn’t reply. Instead, he stares straight ahead, focusing on where he’s taking us, concentrating so he doesn’t draw unwanted attention to the beaten-up car. I can’t see his face from where I am – squashed on the floor behind the front seat – but I can feel the heat of the drive shaft beneath me, the rough fur of the car’s old carpet. It’s nothing like your plush Mercedes. Nowhere near as smooth.
Our daughter is hunched and shaking, also on the floor, her eyes fixed on mine as if letting go will be the end of both of us. Her teeth are clamped together, her lips stretched wide around them. When he forced us to get in, I saw her hesitation, her hopeful glance that we would disobey, stage a revolt. Kick him and run for it. We didn’t.
‘Just do as he says, Ellie,’ I’d told her, my voice stiff from fear. Yet she’d still hesitated, her defiant streak winning through. She’d inherited that from you, of course – all mouth and pained expressions when things didn’t go her way. Even as a toddler, with her blonde, vanilla-scented curls, Ellie had a way of getting what she wanted without having to throw a tantrum like most kids her age. Had us around her little finger, you’d said proudly, bouncing her on your knee.
We’d been loading shopping into my car when he approached us. I heard the echoing footsteps across the empty multi-storey first, noticed the casual flick of Ellie’s gaze as she was arranging her carrier bags in the boot. Then, suddenly, a cold knife curved around my throat, making me gasp. Ellie screamed, but I remained silent. We did as he said.
‘If it’s about money,’ I’d said, terrified, as he’d marched us to his car, mumbling things about ransoms and revenge. ‘I … I’m not sure my husband will pay up.’
He doesn’t know you; how your mind works.
‘It’s not about the money,’ he’d said, telling us to call him Tom even though I knew it wouldn’t be his real name.
As we’d followed him – the knife held at my back beneath my coat, looking as if he had his arm around me – Ellie surreptitiously signalled to the car park’s CCTV cameras, making a few covert gestures, cleverly hoping an astute operator would pick up her distress. I reckoned they’d think she was just a bored teen, Tom and I her parents even though he was a good deal younger than me. Closer to Ellie’s age, in fact. Until they knew we were missing, no one would take any notice of the footage.
When he barked at us to get into his car for a second time, I ushered Ellie in first, my hand on the ridge of her taut spine. It felt cowardly, but I knew the consequences if we didn’t.
‘Don’t worry,’ Tom had said, before driving off. ‘I’ll make sure he fucking pays.’ He turned round, giving me a sinister look.
It would depend on when you called the police, of course. If you called the police. But I didn’t say that to Tom.
*
It’s raining now, a proper downpour with a mix of hailstones and thunder. It pelts off the car roof, making a din so that Ellie’s fearful whimpers can’t be heard. I’m grateful for that.
After an hour, we slow down, bump across what feels like a rough track or a field. It’s odd. I didn’t feel scared at first, almost relishing the sudden change in my life as if I’d been winded by excitement, whisked away from everything I knew – as well as from you. But now I feel scared. Terrified of what’s going to happen. Missing everything I didn’t want any more; even missing you.
As he brings the car to a stop, unbuckling his seatbelt, I press my finger against my lips, imploring Ellie to keep quiet. I give her a look that tells her everything will be all right, that I will, for once, make things OK. I have no idea if it will be.
The back door opens. The weather comes in, whiplashing my back with wind and rain. I’ve been hunched up for so long my legs are stiff, cracking open as he pulls me out. He isn’t rough with me, not like you are when you’re impatient. I shield my face from the wind, pull up my collar as Ellie emerges after me like a crumpled moth, stretching, quivering, her brown coat flapping.
‘What about all the food we left in your car, Mum?’ she says against the wind. ‘It’ll go bad.’ Her white cheeks pink up as if she’s ashamed at remembering such a trivial thing.
We’d been to the deli in town, bought our favourites for dinner. It was just going to be Ellie and me tonight – a rare treat – because you were working late again, you’d said, even though I didn’t believe you. We’d bought crab pâté, hummus, stuffed vine leaves, and crusty bread to eat in front of the new film we’d picked up. A Saturday night treat. But now we were gone, with just the groceries and my unlocked, abandoned car leaving the trail of our day.
‘We’ll get more, love,’ I say quietly. I don’t want to anger Tom, hearing us talk like that, but I don’t want my daughter distraught either. Tom holds the knife in one hand, and fiddles with the lock on his old car with the other, barely giving us any attention. Ellie makes a throaty gasping sound, and I know what she’s thinking as she stares around the grassy, grey moor.
Look around us, Mum. You’re fast, I’m fast. Let’s make a dash for it! One of us might get away, can raise the alarm.
But the ground is rough and I don’t know where we are. The weather is setting in, clamping down, the mist as thick as the fog in my mind. Slowly, imperceptibly, I shake my head, hoping she’ll notice. If she runs, I’ll have to follow her. We’d both get lost and die.
‘Follow me,’ Tom orders, twitching the knife. The light is failing fast, the mist hugging the dripping trees that sweep around the field. We walk along a barely visible track, cutting round a thick spinney. On the other side, there’s a house. A small, low, once-white cottage with three of its four front windows broken. Derelict and abandoned, it looks like a rotten tooth in the fuzzy-edged nowhere moorl
and.
‘Oh God, he’s going to kill us, Mum,’ Ellie wails, covering her face. Why am I so calm? Why aren’t I more scared? My heart bangs erratically, and my mouth is dry and salty, but you’ve conditioned me not to react. To take it on the chin. All those years haven’t been in vain, I think.
I put my arm around her. ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper, even though I can’t be certain it is.
Tom kicks open the door of the cottage. He’s not holding on to either of us, knowing escaping would be futile, especially with night coming. He knows we won’t make a break.
‘Go inside,’ he says, glancing around the moor before going in himself.
There are two rooms downstairs, one each side of the low front door. He takes us to the right, to the room with the window intact. It’s beamy and the ceiling is low. There’s an old sofa without legs, grimy and grey, and a wooden table piled with tins and packets of food. We’re going to be here a while then. Until he extracts as much as he can out of you, I think.
‘Sit down,’ he says quietly. He’s not violent, and immediately I’m reminded of the last time you touched me. Swift and bitter. The pain in my cheek burnt for days; the taste of blood returning every time I ate. The sex was good though, so you said. I wasn’t conscious to know.
‘I’ll get the fire lit.’ Tom’s voice is sombre, as if he’s already ashamed of what he’s done and wants to take care of us.
Ellie huddles close to me as we cautiously lower ourselves down onto the sofa. Dust and stink waft up around us. She whimpers, burying her head against my shoulder. I zip up her coat. Even at sixteen, I still want to take care of her, mother her. Make up for lost time.
Soon, Tom has the fire lit in the grate. He’s well prepared; has obviously planned this. A neat stack of logs to one side of the chimney breast reaches up to the ceiling, and boxes of firelighters and matches sit on a low stool away from the fire. Smoke billows from beneath the brick arch, but as soon as Tom forces the small window pane open an inch, it begins to draw.
‘How long will we be staying?’ I ask, as if we’ve just checked into a hotel. He glances at Ellie, then at me, but only briefly. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
‘Depends,’ Tom says, deadpan. There’s a cupboard set into the wall and he opens it, bringing out a camping stove and a couple of old saucepans. ‘Hungry?’ he asks. The sleeves on his sweater are fraying, the waist of his jeans slung low on his slim hips. He wouldn’t look out of place on a building site, but then the way his blond hair curls from beneath the edge of his beanie, washed and delicate, tells me he could equally be an artist or an actor.
Ellie begins to cry. I know what she’s thinking. Our movie. A tray of delicious snacks. Bertie our Lab lolloped in front of the living-flame gas fire. A warm throw to snuggle beneath as we curl into the hilarity of the film, stuffing our faces. In bed by eleven. You still not back. Me lying awake until three, maybe four when I hear your Mercedes crunch across the gravel. A silent prayer that Ellie won’t hear or be a part of what comes next.
‘Thank you,’ I say to Tom. I don’t want him to think we’re ungrateful. ‘Try to eat something,’ I tell Ellie, when she protests. ‘We need to keep our strength up.’ I flash her a look, and she manages a tiny smile. She hasn’t let go of me since we sat down.
Tom sets up the stove on the table and opens three cans of tomato soup and a packet of flavoured noodles. Ellie and I would never eat things like this. Ten minutes later, when he hands us an enamel mug and plate of hot food, I feel more grateful for this than any prime cut of beef, any specially-imported ingredients you insist I cook for your oh-so-important friends.
‘When you’ve eaten,’ Tom says, ‘you can tell me what I should do.’ He flicks his eyebrows up in a cocky way. Under different circumstances, I’d think he was handsome. Too young for me, but a looker nonetheless. A bit like the gardener you sacked because he chatted with me when I took him out some water. It was a scorching day, but you said you’d seen the way he’d looked at me in my shorts, lingered too long over our conversation.
‘What does he mean, Mum?’ Ellie says. The plate rests on her knee precariously, the mug beside her. ‘Why do we have to tell him what to do?’
‘Eat, love.’
‘No. Tell me!’ She glances between us.
We will get through this, I want to tell her, but I can’t. Not yet.
‘He wants money, love.’
Tom makes a growling sound in his throat. He stands, then paces about, becoming jittery. The knife is on the table, but he is blocking my path to it. Ellie is also looking at it, and again I shake my head at her, hoping she’ll notice me telling her not to do anything stupid.
‘I don’t want money.’ Tom slugs water from a bottle into a camping kettle and puts it on the flame. ‘What will hurt him the most? After that, maybe then it’s about the money.’
I take time to think about this. It’s something I’ve considered many times before. What would hurt you, Marcus?
‘Daddy will pay anything,’ Ellie suddenly says in a calm and measured voice that makes me wonder where she’s mustered the bravery from. She stands up, soup sloshing on her jeans. ‘Just phone him. Tell him to leave a pile of cash somewhere and not to call the police. He’ll do anything you say. You’ll be rich, and we can go.’
Tom’s smile spreads slowly. He stares at her, then me. ‘Spunky.’ He nods approvingly, looking her up and down. ‘But it’s not that easy, sweetheart.’
‘But it is,’ Ellie says undefeated. ‘He’ll give you anything. Probably even our house.’ Then she pulls a face, wondering if that is actually true.
I remember when you showed me the brochure for Drayton Heights, took me for a viewing. Well, it wasn’t really a viewing, was it? More of a presentation. You’d already bought it. Told us that’s where we’d be living from now on since I’d fallen pregnant after one of our lunchtime trysts. I remember waddling around the place, Ellie knuckling through my taut belly as I tested out the echo in each cavernous, empty room, comparing it to that of my wonky-floored flat in Hoxton. It was all my secretary’s salary could afford, especially when the pay-rise you’d promised me two years before never materialised. I’d squealed out high-pitched notes as I’d walked round the empty property, the tiled floors vibrating back the loneliness of the place. The dozens of rugs I later ordered helped dull the stark acoustics after we’d moved in. They didn’t dull my isolation.
‘This will make a perfect nursery.’ I’d gone into a little room off the master bedroom.
‘Nonsense,’ you’d said. ‘How do you expect me to sleep with a baby screaming right next door?’
We left shortly after, cruising down the long drive that kept Drayton Heights separate from the rest of the world, yet still within commuter distance for you. The mainline station wasn’t far and besides, you said, you’d be working from home a lot more. You never did.
The next time I went back to Drayton Heights was with Eleanor in my arms. You’d had us moved in while I was in hospital. It didn’t feel like home.
‘Your dad,’ Tom says, grinning at Ellie. He rubs his chin. ‘What’s his favourite thing?’
‘Stop it,’ I say sternly, trying to take control. It earns me a sharp look, but it’s not fair to pick on her. I’m sure I can talk us out of this.
‘His cars,’ Ellie says tentatively, as if confessing her father’s loves will get us home. ‘He loves them more than anything.’ She’s shaking and her neck is stringy and tense. ‘And he likes…’ Ellie hesitates, her eyes filling with tears. I could tell Tom a hobby or two of yours, but I don’t.
‘And would Daddy be upset to know his precious little girl was holed-up in a place like this?’ Tom sweeps an arm around the room, clattering a tin from the table. It rolls to my foot, dented.
Ellie nods. She draws close to me again, so I wrap my arm around her waist. Her shivers transfer through to me.
‘Speak up!’
‘He … he wouldn’t like it,’ she says.
‘He�
�d better do as he’s told then, eh?’ Tom pulls out a phone, moving to the window. He holds it in a certain position and nods, tapping out a text. ‘If he wants to see either of you again, that is.’
Ellie nods frantically. I close my eyes, drop my head, pressing myself against my daughter. Wishing I could take time back.
*
Marcus Barnard was annoyed that no one was home. Especially now that plans had changed, leaving him no other option but to spend time with his family. Larry had bailed on golf, and Molly, Larry’s wife, had said she was busy, even after Marcus told her he’d got their favourite room at The Manse, the new country hotel a couple of villages away. They wouldn’t be able to use it forever, of course, not once their faces got known. But for now, they held onto some anonymity, could spend an afternoon, maybe a night there together if Molly could get away.
As he went from room to room, calling out for Lisa, he wondered if she knew how frigid she’d become recently. How she turned him off, rather than on, these days with her dull blonde hair, her short nails and that crooked tooth she refused to get fixed.
‘Lisa!’ Marcus called out, slamming the utility room door back against the wall as he went through to the garage. Her car was gone. ‘Damn you,’ he said, going back into the thick warmth of the house.
Upstairs, he went straight into his daughter’s room without knocking. She’d had this room since she was a baby, and he loved coming in here. It was a sanctuary for him – time for father and daughter to catch up; their private time, he called it. He never needed to knock, and the lock on the outside of the door was from long ago. He rarely needed to use it now. In fact, since she’d hit her teens, the lock on the inside had proved far more useful.
‘Eleanor?’ he called, pushing through into her bathroom, half expecting to see her in the shower. She wasn’t there.
Back in the kitchen, he poured himself a large glass of red wine. Bertie thumped his tail against the wall, letting out one begging bark. ‘Hasn’t she bloody well fed you?’ Marcus chucked handfuls of dog biscuits into a bowl, but the Lab just stood there looking at him. His tail stopped wagging.
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